March 7, 2025

— The first astronauts preparing to fly to the moon in more than 50 years want your help identifying their fifth crew member — their "moon mascot."

NASA's Artemis II crew is seeking an original idea for their zero-g indicator (ZGI), a stuffed toy or doll that will be suspended from a tether in their Orion spacecraft to signal when they enter the microgravity environment of space. The Artemis II mission, which is targeted to launch no sooner than late 2026, will swing the crew around the moon and then return them to Earth.

Mission commander Reid Wiseman and mission specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen revealed the contest during a talk at the South by Southwest (SXSW) festival in Austin, Texas. (Victor Glover, the mission's pilot, had to be at Johnson Space Center in Houston to help select the next class of NASA astronaut candidates.)

"I can't stress enough how much this thing becomes the mascot of your crew, because it's the only thing allowed in the cabin that's not been hardware-certified or designed by the Orion engineers, and it's the coolest thing ever," said Koch on Friday (March 7). "It starts floating when you're in space, and as we're all still strapped in our seats, there's really nothing else to show that you are actually in space for the in-cabin camera views except your zero-gravity indicator that is floating around."

"So these are a really cool part of our missions, and we really didn't want any of those friction points trying to figure out what we were going to have," said Koch. "So we are putting this contest out to you all. We would love it if someone in this audience, but actually anyone from around the world, can enter into this contest and hopefully design what's going to go around the moon in our capsule with us."

How to know you're in space. Click to enlarge video in new pop-up window. (NASA)

NASA has partnered with the crowdsourcing company Freelancer to run the contest, which is open through May 27 to elementary school students and adults, working as individuals, classrooms or teams, in the U.S. or a non-designated country (countries that are not party to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade [GATT] or a Free Trade Agreement [FTA] with the U.S.). Depending on their age, up to 25 selected entries will win $1,225 each or an Artemis prize pack.

The contest is seeking designs which will be assembled by NASA's thermal blanket lab for flight. As such, submissions need to be original; relevant to a global audience, representing humanity; and meaningful to the Artemis II mission and astronauts. The finished ZGI needs to be able to fit into a 6-inch square (15.25-cm) box and weigh no heavier than 0.75 pounds (0.34 kg).

For safety reasons, the designs can only be made using Nomex thread; faux fur, polyester or cotton fabric; Beta cloth, Kevlar or Vinyl; Kapton/VDA polyimide film; and poly-fil for stuffing. No other materials are allowed.

The tradition of flying zero-gravity indicators began in the former Soviet Union with the world's first human spaceflight. In 1961, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin carried a small doll with him aboard his Vostok capsule to see it float. Since then, many of Gagarin's fellow cosmonauts have flown toys and stuffed dolls as talisman and ZGI, often at the suggestion of their children.

"Giraffiti flew with me on my one and only flight to the International Space Station," said Wiseman, holding up a plush toy giraffe. "He still has a little bit of stitching on his neck so that he can be hung up in our Soyuz [spacecraft]."

"This was the first gift my mom ever gave to my first born daughter, so this was very sentimental," he told the audience at SXSW.

The ZGI custom migrated to the U.S. with the first flights of NASA's Commercial Crew program, with both SpaceX and Boeing launching their missions with toys on board. Some of those ZGI have included a plush Earth globe, a sequined dinosaur and a sparkly narwhal.

NASA's uncrewed Artemis I mission, which flew around the moon in 2022, carried a custom-made Snoopy doll, complete with a miniature version of the same pressure suit that the Artemis II astronauts will wear on Orion. The Peanuts comic strip beagle spent most of the 25.5-day flight floating at the end of a leash (tether) as he logged more than 1.4 million miles (2.3 million km).

Snoopy has been the safety mascot at NASA since before the first crewed Apollo launch in 1968 and more recently has joined the full Peanuts gang as a symbol for STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education and the Artemis deep space missions.

NASA will ultimately choose one of the winning entries of the "Moon Mascot: NASA Artemis II ZGI Design Challenge" to fly on the mission. The winning designs will be announced on or before July 31, 2025.

"The indicator will float alongside Victor, Christina, Jeremy, and me as we go around the far side of the Moon and remind us of all of you back on Earth," said Wiseman.